Applied Data Science (Online) MSc

You gain a deep insight into the business applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and data science (DA). You explore a range of AI and DS applications such as chatbots, virtual assistants, medical diagnosis, biometric recognition, personalisation, fraud detection and autonomous machines, and analyse both the risks and opportunities of applying AI and DS techniques in these areas.

You develop your ability to design and implement database, big data and analytics applications to meet business needs. A case study is used to follow the system development lifecycle. You develop a plausible application from inception to implementation for a real-world scenario.

You investigate the issues and technologies associated with implementing and supporting large scale databases and the services that are needed to maintain and access a repository of data. Investigations are undertaken in a number of areas including big data, data warehouses, integrating legacy data, data management and approaches that support the modelling and visualisation of data for a range of use views.

You undertake a major, in-depth, individual study in an aspect of your course. Normally computing master’s projects are drawn from commercial, industrial or research-based problem areas. The project involves you in researching and investigating aspects of your area of study and then producing a major deliverable, for example software package or tool, design, web-site and research findings. You also critically evaluate your major deliverable, including obtaining third party evaluation where appropriate.

The major deliverable(s) are presented via a poster display, and also via a product demonstration or a conference-type presentation of the research and findings. The research, project process and evaluation is reported via a paper in the style of a specified academic conference or journal paper. The written report, the major deliverable and your presentation of the product are assessed.

The project management process affords supported opportunities for goal setting, reflection and critical evaluation of achievement.

Gain an introduction to core data science concepts and tools, focusing on real-life data science problems with practical exposure to relevant software. Topics such as preparing and working with data, data visualisation and databases are covered.

Dynamic, interactive visualisations enable the reader to explore the data for themselves through a variety of perspectives. Static visualisations are excellent for print medium but are restricted to showing a single perspective and do not handle multidimensional datasets well. Using an interactive graphic the reader can zoom in on sections of the data which are of interest, explore more than one dimension at a time, and sort and filter to discover new patterns and themes within the data. Particularly useful is the ability to provide a macro/micro view of the same data, ie a big picture view of the full dataset from which the reader can then ‘drill down’ into the lower level detail.

This module uses the javascript library for Data-Driven Documents (D3js) for creating animated, dynamic graphics for the web, and looks at other alternatives available.

Machine learning is a subfield of computer science concerned with computational techniques rather than performing explicit programmed instructions. You build a model from a task based on observations in order to make predictions about unseen data. Such techniques are useful when the desired output is known but an algorithm is unknown, or when a system needs to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.

You explore statistics and probability theory as the fundamental task is to make inferences from data samples. The contribution from other areas of computer science is also essential for efficient task representation, learning algorithms, and inferences procedures. You gain exposure to a breadth of tasks and techniques in machine learning.

Assessment is an in course assessment (100%).

You gain an introduction to the Python programming language and its application to solving problems in digital innovation. This involves the principles of programming, the syntax and structure of Python, its relevant libraries and modules, and how it is incorporated in existing software tools. You form a solid foundation of producing software solutions to real-world problems.